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Germanic Lexicon Project
Message Board
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Author: Gene Brunner (Penn State (retired))
Email: ebb at psu dot edu
Date: 2005-02-21 13:00:58
Subject: Re: &nbar;
Sean, I think that 3 is the most reasonable solution. It continues an established consistency with the -long set.
> > Sean,the reason I used the tag &nbar;, is that I found a reference to it and the phrase "the superscript horizontal bar used as a general mark of contraction is named &bar" in the following web pages
> >
> > http://lemo.irht.cnrs.fr/41/mo41_09.htm
> > http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0006&L=tei-l&F=&S=> >
> > there are more if you do a Google search with nbar;
>
>
> Oh, dear. :-(
>
> Here's the issue. In Unicode, there are two different combining diacritics:
>
> U0304 COMBINING MACRON
> U0336 COMBINING LONG STRONG OVERLAY
>
> The first of the two is supposed to be typeset above the base character that it combines with. The second is suppose to be overstuck, actually crossing over the character that it combines with.
>
> We've got instances of both in our texts here: 
all have the line that goes above, and 
have the overstruck line. In the currently existing entity names, "-long" always means the one that goes above, and "-bar" always means the one which is overstruck.
>
> Right now, the project-internal set is such that you can decompose the entities and automatically work out the Unicode equivalent, because one diacritic nickname (such as "long" or "bar") always maps to only one Unicode combining diacritic character. There are currently no cases where one diacritic nickname maps to different diacritics depending on which base character it combines with.
>
> So according to the current pattern, "n-bar" would mean an n with a horizontal line struck thru it. We could go ahead and say, "no, n-bar means n with a macron above", but this would mean losing the transparent mapping, and we'd also have a naming problem if we later encounter some text which contains an overstruck n (unlikely, but possible).
>
> Another solution would be to change the whole system of entity names, so that "-bar" always means "the macron above" and something else stands for "overstruck line". I'd really rather not do this, because it would be a ton of work to convert all the existing texts, volunteer instructions, typesetting scripts, etc. Also, there is precedent elsewhere for using "-long" for "macron", so we'd be breaking from one precedent to be able to follow another. So I'd rather not go that route unless it looks like a lot of the folks working on the project want it strongly.
>
> In the long run, it's not going to matter. The whole system of entities is just a stopgap measure until the world supports Unicode broadly enough that most volunteers can work with Unicode text in the program of their choice. It will probably be a few more years, but the current state of things is temporary.
>
> So it looks like our choices are:
>
> 1. Call it n-bar, and change all the other entities to keep them consistent
>
> 2. Call it n-bar, leave the other entities as they are, but give up the internal consistency among the existing project entity names
>
> 3. Call it n-long, and ignore the precedents that you point out.
>
> None is very satisfactory. I'd like further comment.
>
> --Sean
| Messages in this thread | Name | College/University | Date |
| &nbar; |
Gene Brunner |
Penn State (retired) |
2005-02-21 03:16:23 |
| Re: &nbar; |
Sean Crist |
Swarthmore College |
2005-02-21 08:58:12 |
| Re: &nbar; |
Gene Brunner |
Penn State (retired) |
2005-02-21 13:00:58 |
| Re: &nbar; |
Gene Brunner |
Penn State (retired) |
2005-02-21 23:56:43 |
| Re: &nbar; |
Sean Crist |
Swarthmore College |
2005-02-25 08:29:46 |